[CW] Obsolete Prosigns

[Richard Knoppow]

    I wonder if this is for light flasher or is adopted from it. 
I learned A or AAA as a call for use with flashers. BTW, I have a 
military type right angle flashlight of the sort the boy scouts 
had. Got this via the web but I don't remember where. Came with 
blue and red filters. Too bad my lady friend has no interest 
whatever in this stuff or I would get her to talk to me via 
flashlight.

On 7/12/2020 4:41 PM, Darrel wrote:
> One more trivial and obsolete reference to "VE"
>
> I found in a 1954 version of "Scouting for Boys" by Baden 
> Powell, in Chapter 7:
>
> *"SIGNAL MEANING AND USE*
>
> /VE, VE, VE, or AAAA Calling up signal.//
> //K Carry on (answer to VE if ready to receive message).//
> //Q Wait (answer to VE if not ready to receive message)."//
> /
>
>     So, there's quite a history of "VE" being used with this 
> meaning,  albeit in defiance of commercial and international 
> agreements and usage.
>
>        Cheers,
>             Darrel, aa7fv & g3sys.
>>> On 07/12/2020 6:48 PM Darrel <demerson2718 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I already posted this to the [SKCC] group, so apologies for 
>>> posting here too.  I thought it might be of particular 
>>> interest to this group.
>>>
>>> I've seen queries about the prosign "VE"  (or equally "SN") 
>>> come up from time to time.  Now, ""VE" means in all contexts 
>>> "Understood", but it wasn't always that way everywhere.  Very 
>>> occasionally, an old timer can be heard lapsing into this 
>>> earlier usage.
>>>
>>>
>>> See "Obsolete Morse Code Prosigns" on 
>>> https://wiki2.org/en/Prosigns_for_Morse_code#cite_note-:4-25 
>>> There's a reference to "1937 Royal Navy Signal Card". *"VE 
>>> General call . . . _ . Code re-used for "Message verified" or 
>>> "Message understood" (see SN above). "* If you follow the 
>>> links to that references given on that Wiki page, there's a 
>>> photo of the 1937 Royal Canadian Signal Card with VE defined 
>>> as above, and also to the Royal Navy Signal Card, with a 
>>> similar definition of VE as a "General Call". When I grew up 
>>> using Morse, in the early 1960s, I suspect there were many 
>>> ex-Royal Navy (and ex British Army) operators on the ham 
>>> bands, who used the prosigns they had been taught. Hence, I 
>>> grew up with "VE" meaning "General Call". I don't think 
>>> either the Royal Navy or the Royal Canadian Navy felt 
>>> particularly bound at the time by any commercial handbook or 
>>> agreed international definition. I also found a reference to 
>>> "VE" meaning "General Call" in an old Boy Scouts manual. I'm 
>>> guessing that may date from Baden Powell and the Boer War. As 
>>> this Wiki page says, these are "Obsolete Morse Code 
>>> Prosigns", even though they were in common usage on one side 
>>> of the Atlantic at one time. I do try to resist using them 
>>> now, although not always successfully. Just for possible 
>>> historical interest. Cheers, Darrel, aa7fv & g3sys.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From https://wiki2.org/en/Prosigns_for_Morse_code
>>>
>>>
>>> From 
>>> https://hatchfive.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/e676af9a-0708-4c10-bbe1-fce8667ea652.jpg 
>>>
>>> The 1937 Royal Navy Signal Card
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From the 1937 Royal Canadian Navy Signal Card
>>> http://www.forposterityssake.ca/RCN-DOCS/SIGNAL_CARD_1937.htm
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>
>
>
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> =30=

-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL